A Guide for the Complete After Dinner Entertainer - Magic Tricks to Stun and Amaze Using Cards, Dice, Billiard Balls, Psychic Tricks, Coins, and Cig

Anon

Description

This unusual book, containing an impressive variety of magic tricks, is sure to delight young and old alike. Its 205 pages contain a wealth of anecdote on a variety of tricks and stunts that are guaranteed to liven up your dinner party. Extensively illustrated with black and white diagrams and drawings. Contents Include: Magic and Trickery; Thought Reading; Tricks with Cards; Dice Deceptions; Billiard Balls; Juggling; Balancing; Psychic Tricks; Coin Tricks; Cigarette Tricks. This book contains classic material dating back to the 1900s and before. The content has been carefully selected for its interest and relevance to a modern audience.

Sujets

• Coin magic
• Card manipulation
• List of magic tricks

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528763684
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Guide for the Complete After Dinner Entertainer
Magic Tricks to Stun and Amaze Using Cards, Dice, Billiard Balls, Psychic Tricks, Coins, and Cigarettes
Copyright 2013 Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Magic Tricks
Magic is a performing art that entertains audiences by staging tricks, or creating illusions of a seemingly impossible, or supernatural nature- utilising natural means . These feats are called magic tricks, effects, or illusions. Some performers may also be referred to by names reflecting the type of magical effects they present, such as prestidigitators (sleight of hand), conjurors (purportedly invoking deities or spirits), hypnotists (involving individuals mental states), mentalists (demonstrating highly evolved mental abilities) or escape artists (the art of escaping from restraints or traps). The term magic is etymologically derived from the Greek word mageia . Greeks and Persians had been at war for centuries and the Persian priests, called magosh in Persian, came to be known as magoi in Greek; a term which eventually referred to any foreign, unorthodox or illegitimate ritual practice.
Performances which modern observers would recognize as conjuring have probably been practiced throughout history. But for much of magic s history, magicians have been associated with the devil and the occult. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many performers capitalised on this notion in their advertisements and shows. In the UK, this association dates back to Reginald Scott s The Discoverie of Witchcraft , published in 1584, in which he attempted to show that witches did not exist, by exposing how many (apparently miraculous) feats of magic were done. The book is often deemed the first textbook about conjuring, but all obtainable copies were burned on the accession of James I in 1603, and those remaining are now very rare. For many centuries, magic was performed either on the street as a type of entertainment for the common masses or at court, for nobility. During the early 1800s however, large-scale magic performances began making their way onto the theatre stage. Modern entertainment magic owes much to Jean Eug ne Robert-Houdin (1805-1871), originally a clockmaker, who opened a magic theatre in Paris in the 1840s. His speciality was the construction of mechanical automata which appeared to move and act as if they were alive; a feat which wowed his audiences for many years.
The escapologist and magician, Harry Houdini took his stage name from Robert-Houdin and developed a range of stage magic tricks, many of them based on what became known after his death as escapology . Houdini was genuinely skilled in techniques such as lock picking and escaping straitjackets, but also made full use of the range of conjuring techniques, including fake equipment and collusion with individuals in the audience. In the modern day, these forms of magic easily transferred from theatrical venues to television specials; a transition which has opened up myriad new opportunities for deceptions. It has also brought stage magic to vast audiences, as most television magicians perform before a live audience, who provide the remote viewer with a reassurance that the illusions are not obtained with post-production visual effects. Some modern illusionists believe that it is unethical to give a performance that claims to be anything other than a clever and skilful deception. Most of these performers therefore eschew the term magician (which they view as making a claim to supernatural power) in favour of illusionist and similar descriptions. On the other side of the coin, many performers say that magical acts, as a form of theatre, need no more of a disclaimer than any play or film; this viewpoint is reflected in the words of magician and mentalist Joseph Dunninger, who stated that for those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.
Although there is also discussion among magicians about how a given effect should be categorised, they broadly fall into the following categories: Production (where the magician produces something from nothing; a rabbit from a hat for example), Vanish (where something disappears), Transformation (where a silk handkerchief may change colour), Restoration (where the magician will destroy an object, then restore it to its original state, Teleportation (where a borrowed ring may be found inside a ball of wool, or a canary inside a light bulb), Levitation (where the magician, or some person or object defies gravity), and Prediction (where events are predicted under seemingly impossible and unexplainable circumstances).
Card Manipulation
Card manipulation is the branch of magical illusion that deals with creating effects using sleight of hand techniques involving playing cards. Card manipulation is often used in magical performances, to great effect, especially in close-up, parlour and street magic. Some of the most recognised names in this field include Dai Vernon, a Canadian magician with considerable influence, specialising in sleight of hand, Ed Marlo, an American born magician who referred to himself as a cardician , and Alex Elmsley, a Scot who was notable for his invention of the Ghost Count or Elmsley Count , creating various mathematical card tricks, and for publishing the mathematics of card shuffling. Before becoming world famous for his escapology act, Houdini billed himself as The King of Cards .
Cards have a long and illustrious history, they were first invented in Imperial China, and specimens have been found dating back as early the ninth century, during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Female players were some of the most frequent participants, and the first known book on cards, called Yezi Gexi (presumably written in the 860s) was originally written by a Tang era woman, subsequently undergoing additions by other Chinese scholars. By the eleventh century, playing cards could be found throughout the Asian continent. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), characters from novels such as the Water Margin were widely featured on the faces of playing cards. Playing cards first entered Europe in the early fourteenth century, probably from Egypt, with suits (sets of cards with matching designs) very similar to the tarot suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins (also known as disks or pentacles). These latter markings are still used in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese decks. Playing cards were first formalised into something closely resembling our modern deck in the seventeenth century, but the joker was only introduced by the USA in the 1870s.
As props, playing cards have only become popular with magicians in the last century or so, largely due to their inexpensive nature, versatility and easy availability. Although magicians have created and presented myriad of illusions with cards (sometimes referred to as tricks ), most of these illusions are generally considered to be built upon one hundred or so basic principles and techniques. Presentation and context (including patter , the conjurer s misleading account of what he is doing) account for many of the variations. Card magic, in one form or another, likely dates from the time playing cards became commonly known, towards the second half of the fourteenth century, but its history in this period is largely undocumented. Compared to sleight of hand magic in general and to cups and balls, it is a relatively new form of magic. Common manipulation techniques include lifts , where one or more cards (normally known to the audience) are selected and identified as part of the illusion, false deals , which appear to deliver cards fairly, when actually the cards are predetermined or known to the performer, and side slips , a technique generally used to bring a predetermined card to the top of a deck. Passes, Palming, False Shuffles, False Cuts, Changes, Crimps, Jogs and Reverses are also commonly utilised manipulations.
CONTENTS
Magic and Trickery
Thought Reading
Tricks with Cards
Dice Deceptions
Billiard Balls
Juggling
Balancing
Psychic Tricks
Coin Tricks
Cigarette Tricks
MAGIC AND TRICKERY
THINGS YOU CAN DO WITHOUT BEING A MAGICIAN
M AGIC does not exist, and the mysteries of this world are all too few. Nevertheless, that need not prevent you and me from standing before an audience, and deluding the onlookers into thinking that we possess supernatural gifts.
Of course, people are very sceptical in these enlightened days, but, even so, they are still easily misled, and, probably it will not be long before you have sufficient skill to mystify a whole roomful of people. It is then that the conjurer finds his work interesting. He has just put over one of his favourite turns, we will say. It has gone with a bound from start to finish. He bows eloquently, and there is a stilly silence throughout the hall, broken suddenly by a timid clapping which develops immediately into a burst of applause. He bows a second time, and, all the while, he is stifling his chuckles, because he knows how remarkably simple the whole thing has been.
Yes, conjuring is great fun when you feel at home in front of an audience, and it is marvellous how quickly you do feel at home on the stage, when you have something good up your sleeve-in more senses than one.
In this book, I am going to take you behind the scenes and let you into many secrets. But there is one thing I ask. When you have learnt to work the tricks described in these pages, go out and perform them to all and sundry, but do not divulge the methods yo